Confidence

A wonderful post here from Joe Posnanski about the confidence of his six year old daughter and how little he had to do with it. I'm (of course) reminded of my fearless little Relia. Whenever we run into strangers she takes it upon herself to introduce herself and however much of her family is with her. Usually the second thing she asks a stranger is 'how do you like my dress?'. Other people are (usually) charmed by her but her fearless breaking of Minnesota Nice norms is strange to us.
Strange, but not anything that we want to discourage. And this is something that I've been thinking about lately. How do we help our children stay outgoing as they grow up? This may seem like a strange question from a person who did years and years of theater and still can't help going up on a stage to sing. I've joked about how you could push me out on the 50 yard line at the Super Bowl halftime show and I'd try to do something entertaining. But this is different somehow.
Somewhere in life I became convinced that it was wrong to try and draw attention to myself. Not sure when or why but I knew that I didn't want to be one of 'those people'. Sometimes I'm glad of this but the flip side has been a growing tendency towards becoming a wall flower. Unless I'm with people that I'm very comfortable with, I simply react to what they're doing. Even when I know that I can lead, I don't.
Well, I don't want this for my kids. I'd rather that they have the courage and will to take the reins and be the one that the crowd follows. But how do you help them keep that natural childish instinct? Is there any way to protect them from being ground down by the inevitable failures that comes with being a leader?
Well. Going back to the post that inspired this post, the answer is probably that I can only have a small effect anyway. But I'll keep looking for ways.